


Soul of the Sea

by zhovel



Category: LOONA (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Selkie Jinsol, and also a love triangle?, big sad, especially sooyoung, the sea is a constant presence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:41:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24130744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zhovel/pseuds/zhovel
Summary: They find Jinsol like this: naked and sprawled out on the beach, not another soul in sight and no footprints leading towards her, so the only explanation that the town manages to come up with is that Jinsol comes from the sea.The sea takes, and the sea gives. Begrudgingly, everyone who lives here has grown to respect it, and not ask for explanations.(Haseul goes missing. Sooyoung doesn't cope well. Jinsol appears a few months later; and she is a girl with no backstory and doesn't speak but everything has a way working itself out.)
Relationships: Ha Sooyoung | Yves & Jo Haseul, Ha Sooyoung | Yves/Jo Haseul, Ha Sooyoung | Yves/Jung Jinsol | Jinsoul
Comments: 41
Kudos: 100





	Soul of the Sea

The waves, when Sooyoung catches a glimpse of them from the window, seem to retreat back into the ocean. The sky is grey and overcast and it’s very unusual for a small, seaside town that relies on good weather to fish and survive. 

It feels like an omen. 

“You should go out,” Jiwoo says in lieu of a greeting. She has a basketful of bread and firewood with her today; and wordlessly, Sooyoung takes it from her and nods her head towards the finished fishing nets in the corner. 

The town can’t banish her completely — no one else makes the nets like she does. They don’t have her nimble fingers and attention to detail. But still, they are afraid of her and it shows — the only person Sooyoung has seen in weeks is Jiwoo, because she doesn’t seem to notice the metaphorical grey cloud that hangs over Sooyoung, so the role of keeping Sooyoung alive falls naturally on her shoulders. 

Sooyoung considers Jiwoo half a friend, nothing more. Because the last friend she had is gone, and she doesn’t want to risk going through that again.

“No one wants to see me,” she mutters. She doesn’t even bother with brushing her hair these days. She cut it short. It brushes against the nape of her neck, matted and dull; but it’s better this way, because long hair reminds her of ghosts in the past. 

“They’re just stupid,” Jiwoo says, clenching her fists threateningly. “You’re not cursed.”

Sooyoung wonders how Jiwoo can fit so much sincerity inside her, for someone so small. She doesn’t know what to believe anymore. They did banish her to the hut for a reason — but Sooyoung also misses her old life. 

Some days, she feels like she’s punishing herself instead. 

Why is Jiwoo still here even after months, acting as a glorified delivery boy for her? As kids, they barely talked to each other at school, even though school was just twenty children of varying ages shoved into a single room and one long-suffering teacher. Sooyoung doesn’t really remember anything about young Jiwoo, apart from the fact that she beamed at everyone and her best friend, Jungeun, moved away when they were twelve.

Good for Jungeun.

This town is suffocating.

The photo frames clatter against each other clumsily when Jiwoo turns and knocks into them by accident. Sooyoung tenses up at the sudden noise — she’s used to the quiet by now. Jiwoo is the only person she’s spoken to in over a month.

“You have to come back someday, anyway,” Jiwoo says, and doesn’t notice the change in Sooyoung’s demeanour. “I don’t think they’d mind as much as you think.”

Sooyoung swallows.

Jiwoo doesn’t understand — Sooyoung is the one who isn’t ready to go back. She’s still waiting for the song to come back, and bring her best friend back home along with it. She can’t mourn yet. She refuses to believe that the only good thing left in this town is gone, it _can’t_ be. 

Instead, she insists, “the hut is quite nice.”

Both of them turn to look at the cramped walls of the hut, the cracks in the ceiling that leaks water when it rains — it remained this way because it’s been abandoned for years, because it’s too far from town and cold and lonely out here on the cliffs. It was the perfect place to hide a cursed girl away from sight.

They hadn’t even bothered to fix it before making Sooyoung move in. 

There’s something patronising in the way Jiwoo looks at her, eyes gentle with pity. “You know there’s a new girl in town?” she says. “Maybe meeting her would do you some good. We all need someone new from time to time.” 

Sooyoung stares at the floor and wishes that they would swallow her up, because Jiwoo’s gaze feels pitying, and Sooyoung doesn’t do well with feeling small. “I— Jiwoo, you _know_ that I can’t go back to town.”

“It wasn’t even your fault in the first place!” 

Sooyoung thinks about the sea, silent and boding, calm after the storm. She imagines how Haseul would’ve looked underwater, eyes terrified and sinking and throat gasping for air that wasn’t there anymore. When Sooyoung had come back alone, the shriek that spilled out of Yeojin’s lips and bounced off the cliffs was wild and desperate; and Sooyoung lives with the scars on her heart. 

What Sooyoung doesn’t say out loud to Jiwoo, that it _was_ her fault. Jiwoo just doesn’t know enough to be angry. 

She turns away from Jiwoo. “Yeojin blames me for it.”

“It’s a seaside town, Sooyoungie,” Jiwoo says, “people go missing, sooner or later. She’ll forgive you someday.”

* * *

Sooyoung befriended Haseul because of the song. 

(They fled to this town. Her mother clutched her by the ears, and hissed, “you do _not_ let people know, you hear me?”

Sooyoung nodded, because there was no other option — she couldn’t leave the sea. Sailors were superstitious. It all made sense to her. It just wasn’t fair that she was the one with the family curse — the melody that weaved its way between the waves was bewitching at best; and if anyone listened to it for too long, bad things happened. If she didn’t resist, she would end up like the rest of her family.)

The song started in the middle of class a few days after they moved here. Sooyoung gritted her teeth, entirely prepared for the pain that came with blocking out the call of the song. 

Whatever it took to fit in. Whatever it took, to not have to move away again. 

Except — she wasn’t prepared for Haseul meeting her eyes from across the room that day. The window was open, because she remembers the breeze playfully mussing up Haseul’s hair as she mouthed, _“you hear it too?”_ to Sooyoung, much too eagerly for someone who was asking about her biggest secret. But back then, something inside Sooyoung soared — there was none of the weight on Haseul’s shoulders, she was entirely carefree. 

Sooyoung just wanted an excuse to feel the same. So she nodded back at the gap-toothed girl, and the rest was history. 

Years later, they still hadn’t talked about the song openly. Haseul prodded enough to know that it was a sensitive topic for Sooyoung; so instead, she hummed the melody under her breath and Sooyoung sang it back to her, and they spent Friday nights together holed up in Sooyoung’s room trying to transcribe the song. It slipped through the cracks of their fingers though — it was something otherworldly and not meant to be held.

For a while, it was enough. Sooyoung almost forgot that the song was meant to be a curse for her; until the reminder came. 

It happened like this: of course she was supposed to meet Haseul by the sea that night. Sooyoung ran late because of something stupid and forgettable, and by the time she made her way there, the cliffs were empty. 

Sooyoung thought that Haseul had just forgotten. 

(In hindsight, there was no way Haseul would’ve stood her up. It was a small town, they were best friends, and they had an unspoken pact that if the song started, they would drop everything to find each other.)

Sooyoung just went home, ignoring the uneasiness stirring up in her stomach and didn’t tell anyone about Haseul. Then a few days later, Yeojin knocked on her door in the middle of the night and said, “she’s missing.” She didn’t need to say anything else — they both knew who she meant. 

Of _course_ it happened right after the song stopped. 

She’d heard too many tales of caution from her mother, passed down through generations — the song’s fault. The song tore people apart. Sooyoung should’ve listened to her mother and denied everything on the first day. Maybe Haseul wouldn’t be missing if she did that. 

She was starting to think that everyone else was right about the song. 

Sooyoung didn’t know why she felt so certain, but she _knew_ that it was too late. The cliffs were completely quiet. The song was gone. The only other time it had done that was when Haseul kissed her, as a dare, when they were fourteen. Sooyoung thought about how soft her hands were in Sooyoung's, and the sea-kissed redness of her cheeks. She remembered all the stolen hours together trying to figure out the melody that haunted both of them, lilting voices and blue-lights; and the memory felt blurry, blissful. The sea had sighed for both of them, back then, and gone quiet.

Only the song could bring Haseul back, if that’s what took her away.

Sooyoung followed the crowd to the harbour, where the town’s biggest boat had been docked for months now, withering away. The fishing ships were too small for something like this. 

In this place, there was nowhere to go but seaward. The town lay quiet and unassuming on most days; then it built like a tsunami, broke like a wave. 

“Why aren’t you leaving?” Yeojin demanded. She was the one who forcefully knocked on every door until she gathered enough people to man a ship. And now she stood in front of the rowdy crowd, not a flicker of fear on her face. “What’s wrong?”

“We can’t!” the pastor’s son interrupted, his face white and pinched as he stared at the ship. “They’ll come for us.”

“That’s my _sister_ out there,” Yeojin hissed venomously. “And you don’t want to go because of some silly—”

It’s too late. 

Everyone was hesitating for a reason. The wooden girl carved into the bow of the ship had most of her face smashed in, from an accident that they didn’t talk about anymore. Last time someone tried to sail a boat without a masthead, the crew had come back mad and raving. 

No one knew what happened.

It was a bad omen. 

Yeojin’s face crumbled when the silence dragged on too long. “But you have to!”

There were murmurs of sympathy, but the men stayed rooted in place. And alone, Yeojin couldn’t do anything, and her pleas fell on empty ears. 

Sooyoung was slowly realising that she didn’t raise the alarm when she could have — no one knew that they were meant to meet on the cliffs. It’s just — if someone had asked one too many questions, Sooyoung knew that she had to come clean about why they were there in the first place. And the fear of having yet another home wrecked because of her stupid ability was ingrained into her, deep enough to scar.

Sooyoung didn’t want to think about what home meant to her. 

Her feet moved of their own accord. Sooyoung pushed her way to the front of the crowd without much effort, and she said, “what if I go too?”

“You haven’t even sailed before,” one of the men pointed out. “You’re a girl.”

He was right. Sooyoung had never been out to sea. But she could feel it tugging at her heartstrings. It wasn’t that difficult to square up her shoulders and nod forward, as gruffly as a sailor would. “Exactly. The figurehead is a girl.” 

It was scary how convincing she sounded even to her own ears — Sooyoung _didn’t_ know what she was talking about. Her heart was pounding. All she thought of was the way that she just sat there, silent and waited; all she could think was that it _should have been her_ on the cliff that night — at least she didn’t have any family left. 

Yeojin must have waited up for Haseul that night. The guilt started churning in her stomach at the realisation, and it kept her going. “What if I go too? As a replacement for the masthead.”

“You’re completely mad,” someone laughed from the crowd, but it was a singular voice.

Sooyoung shrugged, spreading her hands. “We don’t have time. It’s worth a try, anyway,” she said, and they knew she was right. 

By then, Haseul had been missing for days.

* * *

They find Jinsol like this: naked and sprawled out on the beach, not another soul in sight and no footprints leading towards her, so the only explanation that the town manages to come up with is that Jinsol comes from the sea. 

The sea takes, and the sea gives. Begrudgingly, everyone who lives here has grown to respect it, and not ask for explanations. 

“I still think that we’re missing something,” Jiwoo says, the one to feed Sooyoung all the little tidbits about Jinsol. “Someone like _her_ — it doesn’t make sense.” 

Sooyoung hums, pretending to concentrate on twisting the twine into sturdy little knots. The motion is repetitive and doesn’t need her attention, but she would rather look like she isn’t listening. Something about Jiwoo’s insistence on figuring Jinsol out rubs her the wrong way. 

“A shipwreck, maybe,” says Jiwoo. 

And suddenly Sooyoung is pulled back into the memory of how it had felt to be on the boat; when the wind started picking up and the waves pulled back and the crew glanced at each other. 

_“You will be safe,” Hyejoo had told her before they left, completely earnest. “You aren’t a man. The sea won’t hurt you.”_

_Sooyoung held onto the memory, repeating Hyejoo’s words in her head like a mantra as the boat rocked higher and higher. She closed her eyes, salt on her face._

_Then they crashed into the rocks._

_Sooyoung remembers choking._

_She remembers how the water had made her limbs heavy and her head drowsy. Sooyoung knew that she should try to swim back towards the air, but the music started again; and out there, in the middle of the sea, Sooyoung didn’t have the energy to fight it._

_The currents tugged her downwards. And it should’ve been the end, except— something nudged at her, too strongly to not be alive._

_The salt water stung when Sooyoung opened her eyes — only to see two eyes in front of her, round and dark. Sooyoung almost inhaled out of pure shock. Underwater and groggy, it took her much more time than it should have for her to recognise it as a seal. It cocked its head to the side, curious and so oddly human._

_Sooyoung reached out a shaky hand to pet it._

_Might as well._

_There was the thought of_ you are not one of them _in her head, too sharp and foreign to be her own, then everything went black._

_Sooyoung wakes up alone on the shore, the debris of the shattered boat floating nearby, not a single member of the crew alive but her. When the villagers find her, they decide that she’s cursed._

“Sooyoung?”

Sooyoung jolts. She almost reaches up to touch her throat, because the feeling of water in her lungs was too real. Is this how Haseul had felt, then? 

Jiwoo reaches out to touch Sooyoung’s arm, uncharacteristically gentle. “Another flashback?”

(Yeojin had clutched onto her in the same way as Jiwoo is doing now before they set sail on the rescue mission, and whispered, “ _promise me you’ll find her._ ” And Sooyoung held her back just as tightly, replied with “ _I swear on my life_ ”; and she came home with her hands empty.) 

The memories come in aftershocks. 

Sooyoung jerks away from Jiwoo as if she’s been burned. “Please don’t touch me.” 

Everything seems to remind Sooyoung of the past nowadays. The ghosts are alive in her head, the memory of the song is haunting compared to how silent the sea seems to be these days. She can’t break free from it.

“Sooyoungie…” 

Sooyoung barely registers Jiwoo’s words. She’s trying to remember how the song goes — the B follows the crescendo, and there was a symphony of voices, then what? 

Between the two of them, Haseul was the musical genius. And now she disappeared — Sooyoung refuses to use the word _missing_ , refuses to use the word _gone_ ; because otherwise it’s too real. 

“You’re not okay,” Jiwoo says, staring at Sooyoung. Sooyoung notes the little worry lines between Jiwoo’s eyebrows and thinks, _do you hate yourself when you see your reflection in the waves, too?_

It’s been a long time coming.

“I will be,” Sooyoung says softly anyway, just to placate Jiwoo.

It’s silent for a moment. Then— 

“Do you know that Jinsol's eyes are really sad too?” Jiwoo muses, like she’s been thinking about it for a long time. “Kind of reminds me of yours, actually.”

The twine snaps under Sooyoung’s fingers. She looks at the broken ends of the white threads, and something in her swells, too sharp to name. 

Grief? 

Bitterness? 

Sooyoung lets the half-finished net drop to the ground. “It isn’t polite to barge into other people’s business.”

Her words aren’t spiteful at all. Jiwoo still blushes all the way to the tip of her ears; and for the first time in weeks, she doesn’t linger by Sooyoung’s doorway when she leaves. And that’s when Sooyoung remembers that she never got to find out how the song ends — Haseul disappeared before they finished it. 

* * *

Her dreams are restless.

When Sooyoung sees Haseul sitting on her bed, laughing, she can’t help the smile that spreads over her face to mirror Haseul. Sooyoung just wants to see her best friend happy — everything she’s been feeling, it doesn’t really matter anymore as long as Haseul’s back.

But then the song starts. Haseul’s eyes glaze over, and she takes Sooyoung by the hand and drags her over to the sink and pushes her head under the sink; and the water— 

Sooyoung jolts awake, breathing heavily. 

The nightmares have been coming for a while. She’s used to it. But this one is the worst so far though, because for a moment, she was happy and it felt so real, and Sooyoung swears she can still hear Haseul’s laugh lingering in the stagnant air.

Sooyoung can’t stand it. She barely feels like a real person anymore. She draws back the curtains, desperate for some sunlight. 

There’s a perfect view of the cliffs from the singular window in the hut. 

Something moves in the distance. Sooyoung squints. 

That’s when she sees it, the person with their arms flung out to the sides and their face tilted towards the sun, wobbling dangerously close to the edge; and she doesn’t even realise that her body’s moving on autopilot until she flings the door wide open and starts running. She doesn’t even have her shoes on. The rocks sting the soles of her feet, but it doesn’t matter. 

Not again. She can’t be responsible again. 

The way up the rocks is familiar. Sooyoung clambers her way to the top in record speed, cups her hands around her mouth and hollars, “HEY!”

The person turns. 

It isn’t a familiar face. It’s a girl of her age, her limbs dangerously thin; and Sooyoung’s heart leaps into her throat — because it’s more dangerous if it’s someone who doesn’t know their way around the cliffs, and especially because the girl is so close to the edge. 

“Come back down!” Sooyoung shouts. Her throat stings from the sudden loudness, so she has to settle for mouthing “it’s not safe!” at the girl. 

The girl just smiles at her. She clambers down the rocks without a single refusal, strangely unsteady on her feet, but it’s enough to make Sooyoung breathe out, relieved. 

Sooyoung hasn’t felt anything this close to adrenaline in a long time. Now, it rushes through her like a drug, making her light-headed; and Sooyoung has to sit down abruptly because she doesn’t trust her legs to work properly anymore. 

There aren’t a lot of strangers in this town. They still think of Sooyoung as foreign even though she’s been here for almost ten years. 

“Why are you here?” Sooyoung calls. 

No reply. 

Sooyoung pulls her shaking legs closer to her chest, and continues firing questions at the girl. “Who are you? Where are you from? How did you get on the cliffs?”

By now, the girl is close enough for Sooyoung to pick out her features. Her eyes sit too big on her face, round and dark and seal-like. Then she is dropping to her knees in front of Sooyoung, and Sooyoung recoils. 

“Jinsol,” the girl says, pointing to herself, and doesn’t even seem to feel the rocks scraping raw at her knees, or notice Sooyoung’s hesitance. 

“That’s— that’s your name?”

“Yes.”

Up close, Jinsol’s eyes are hauntingly familiar. And they’re dangerously sad; for some reason, Sooyoung can’t break away from her gaze. 

“S-Sooyoung. That’s me,” Sooyoung says quickly, stumbling over her words, just so she doesn’t seem like a creep. “You’re passing through town?”

“Yes,” Jinsol says, a barely noticeable lisp in her words, then frowns uncertainly. “No?”

She seems harmless. Sooyoung leans back, eyes flitting all over the girl to take her in. 

There’s an aura of wistfulness that hangs around Jinsol. It’s captivating, both in the way that is beautiful, and in the way that is strange and out of place. For the first time, Sooyoung feels something other than hollowness. 

“Who’re you visiting?” 

Jinsol wiggles slightly in place, looking uncomfortable in her own skin. “I— I am not visiting. Woke up here.”

Suddenly, Sooyoung recalls Jiwoo telling her about the girl that had washed up on shore. With Jinsol in front of her, Sooyoung finally understands why they took her in — something about Jinsol screams desperate, that she has a wild heart and has seen loss. It feels like Jinsol has been through things too — fleeing a hometown, maybe? Lost a lover? 

This is a seaside town.

They know what loss means.

“Living— in town,” Jinsol offers haltingly, as if the words are unfamiliar and she spends too much time thinking about them before they come out. “Empty house. Owner not here.” 

Sooyoung frowns. There aren’t many houses here — the town is small and sleepy, and when they first moved here, it had felt so bleak that Sooyoung had gotten cabin fever. Jiwoo didn’t tell her about anyone leaving. 

Unless— 

“Are there swans painted on the bedroom walls?” 

Jinsol nods warily.

“Seriously?” The outburst erupts from Sooyoung, much too loudly for their little bubble out here on the cliffs. But Sooyoung can’t focus on anything but the anger bubbling up in her at the thought of a strange girl in _her_ home, invading _her_ space; she hated this place at first but it’s still home. “It hasn’t even been two months? Like, it’s fine if you need a place to stay, but they could at least _ask_. They can’t even bother to wait until I—”

Sooyoung notices Jinsol flinching away from her, arms wrapped protectively around herself; and manages to stop herself mid-sentence. 

“Sorry,” she says, lowering her voice, “That— I’m the girl who owns it. You’re living in my house.” 

“Your house,” Jinsol repeats. She parts her lips, looking like she wants to ask questions, but doesn’t speak. 

There’s so much fragility and longing trapped behind her eyes. 

Jiwoo told her that Jinsol had washed up on shore, alone; for someone who comes from the sea and does not speak and has no backstory, Jinsol is too pretty for her own good.

“Something bad— really, really bad happened,” Sooyoung says, before she knows what she’s doing. She doesn’t mean for the words to slip out, but it’s too late to take them back now. “I guess the town blamed me for it,” she mutters, “so I had to move to the hut. Out here on the cliffs, away from everyone. That’s why it’s empty. Until you moved in, I guess.”

“Oh,” Jinsol says. 

She doesn’t apologise, doesn’t ask for more, doesn’t do any of the things that Sooyoung has become accustomed to. She just reaches out and clasps Sooyoung’s hand between her own, then presses it to her cheek, soft and squishy.

There’s nothing but the sound of waves crashing against the cliff. Jinsol doesn’t seem to notice the silence. Sooyoung wonders how hard it will be to get words out of her. 

“Can you tell me something about you?”

Jinsol drops Sooyoung’s hand to point at herself again. “Jinsol.”

“Yes,” Sooyoung says, a little impatiently. “Something _other_ than that.”

Jinsol just stands up. For the first time, Sooyoung notices how queerly Jinsol’s clothes fit her. They look old and worn-out and familiar, as if someone from town had hurriedly gathered up all the clothes they didn’t want anymore and dumped it into her arms. For all Sooyoung knows, that was how things went.

“Goodbye,” Jinsol says abruptly, and walks away. 

Sooyoung stares after her, mouth dropping open. “Hey!” she calls after Jinsol. “If you come up to the cliffs again, come find me, okay? I don’t want to watch you fall off the edge and die!”

Jinsol doesn’t look back a single time.

* * *

“The sea,” Jinsol says the next morning, “is very quiet today.”

Sooyoung marvels at how Jinsol can sense her presence even without turning around. She doesn’t ask before plopping down beside the girl, and says, rather accusingly, “You didn’t come find me.”

Jinsol just stares out at the waves as they lap at the side of the cliff, eyes wistful. “—weren’t here,” she mutters.

“What?”

Finally, Jinsol tears her eyes away from the sea. “You w—were sleeping earlier. Didn’t want to bother you.”

“Huh,” Sooyoung says flatly.

“Curtains open,” Jinsol replies, the tips of her ears slowly turning a furious red as the silence between them starts dragging on. 

“Oh,” Sooyoung says, and scoots closer, “well, that’s alright. I was gonna show you my home today, but I guess you saw? There’s not much to see anyway.”

Jinsol stares at her while she speaks, chewing on the inside of her cheek, contemplative. Sooyoung glances at her, unused to the attention; but it helps that Sooyoung is a little curious about Jinsol too. 

All of a sudden, Jinsol’s hand shoots out and catches the edge of Sooyoung’s sleeve. “I will give you back your home,” she says determinedly, and tugs lightly at her sleeve. 

“My home— what?”

Jinsol wrinkles up her nose uncomfortably. “You don’t—don’t like the hut. You are sad when you talk about it.”

She isn’t wrong, not exactly. 

Sooyoung is surprised that Jinsol picked up on it though — she hasn’t thought about it in a while. She doesn’t blame anyone for making her move here — doesn’t blame anyone but herself, actually, for how things turned out. And it’s easier to keep vigil here, mourn, whatever people want to call it; at least the hollowness inside her doesn’t feel wrong when she’s out here alone. 

“It’s okay, Jinsol. I can live here.”

Jinsol shakes her head. “No, _your_ home,” she insists, and blinks slowly at Sooyoung.

Suddenly, Sooyoung doesn’t want to laugh anymore. Without trying, Jinsol has brushed onto one of the things she’s the most sensitive about, but tries to hide. For an odd reason though, Sooyoung doesn’t feel defensive. She just circles her finger and thumb around Jinsol’s wrist, so she can tug Jinsol’s hand down gently. “I’ve gotten used to it.” 

“Why don’t they like you anymore?” Jinsol says, eyes forlorn and sincere. 

Sooyoung breathes in sharply, trying to hide the sting that Jinsol’s words bring her. “Tell me something about you,” she counters, so the focus isn’t on her anymore.

Jinsol just shuffles away. It’s obvious that she’s hiding something, Sooyoung can tell from the nervous bob of her throat when she swallows. She almost prods, except— 

The first whisper of song starts. 

They both turn towards the sea at the same time. Sooyoung doesn’t actually realise that Jinsol’s reacting too until her mind catches up, a few moments too late. By the time Sooyoung whips her head towards Jinsol, she’s already hunched back into herself, rubbing the sides of her arms as if she’s missing something and needs to warm herself up.

Sooyoung’s conflicted. 

If it were anyone else, she would've pushed for more, rough and careless. But Jinsol carries an air of melancholy with her — even Sooyoung feels the need to be careful when it comes to her; she doesn’t dare to disturb this tentative thing between them. She’s starting to understand what Jiwoo meant about Jinsol and her sad, longing eyes. 

“A secret for a secret,” she says, just so the strain between them can dissipate. She’s decided that she needs Jinsol to trust her first. 

“I—” Jinsol starts, darting a look towards the sea, and she looks so cold, so lonely that Sooyoung wants to drape a blanket over her shoulders so the chill doesn’t seep into her bones. Then, Jinsol says, “I don’t like meat unless it’s fish”, and it’s so sudden and unexpected that Sooyoung barks out a laugh and immediately slaps a hand over her mouth to cover the sound. She didn’t expect the conversation to steer into something so light-hearted. 

Sooyoung jumps at the opportunity anyway. “Sorry— I just didn’t think you’d— you know Jiwoo? I have a story about us and a clam.”

The corner of Jinsol’s mouth twitches up uncertainly. And suddenly, Sooyoung’s still looking at her; but for a different reason this time. 

They end up staying there until the sun sets; Sooyoung tells Jinsol about what she does and a little about the town — nothing important, nothing of substance. Jinsol doesn’t say much. But somehow, talking to Jinsol comes easy, even if it’s mostly one sided. 

For the first time since she comes back from the shipwreck, Sooyoung finds herself smiling.

* * *

Slowly, Sooyoung stops stumbling across Jinsol on the cliffs and starts expecting her presence. Sometimes she brings her giant spools of twine to the cliffs so she can work while they keep each other company. She offered to let Jinsol help once, but Jinsol saw the net and her face immediately went pale, so Sooyoung chalked it up to one of her many quirks. 

For some reason, she’s been feeling a lot lighter lately.

(“Like I said,” Jiwoo says, bouncing excitedly when she catches Sooyoung dusting the hut for the first time in months, “she’s doing you good.”

Jiwoo has been coming by a lot less. She still sends little presents with Jinsol — the occasional letter from Hyejoo, a spare loaf of bread. Sooyoung thought she missed Jiwoo, but the smugness in her voice is starting to make her reconsider. 

And yet, she swallows her pride, and says, “thanks for the—”

Sooyoung can’t really continue, because she’s trying to put something much too overwhelming into words. The gratitude she’s feeling — it’s not just about Jiwoo doing her best to keep Sooyoung alive. It’s about Jinsol, about the way Sooyoung can wake up now and not feel like the days are dragging on and sometimes, she can breathe properly. On the good days, her lungs no longer feel like they’re threatening to collapse from the weight on her chest. But Jiwoo grins at her, and there’s understanding there somewhere; and Sooyoung thinks that maybe Jiwoo’s been a friend all this time. 

She just hadn’t noticed. 

“Baby steps,” Jiwoo says, bringing her back to reality, “that’s all I want from you.”)

“What are you thinking about?” Jinsol says. She doesn’t trip over her own words as much anymore. Sooyoung barely notices the difference, but it is at times like this that she gets reminded of how far they’ve come in such a short amount of time.

“That you came from the sea,” she says instead, because she doesn’t want Jinsol to see the sad, nostalgic side of her yet. “You ever miss it?”

Jinsol scuffs the bottom of her shoe against the rock. “I don’t remember,” she answers, and turns towards the sea. When she stares out into the water, there is so much longing in her eyes that it almost makes Sooyoung feel a little afraid. 

It’s a blatant lie. 

It’s also an unpleasant reminder that Sooyoung doesn’t actually know anything about Jinsoul, other than the fact that she doesn’t like the taste of meat and stares at the sea a lot; and suddenly she feels stupid about the sentimentality she was feeling, seconds ago.

“Right then,” she says sharply, and exhales, “it’s almost time to go, anyway.”

Jinsol’s eyes dart back towards her, picking up on the sour tinge in her words. It’s what makes her such good company, Sooyoung thinks, the fact that Jinsol listens and notices the little things — and the momentary irritation surging up inside her settles back down. 

“You’ll walk me there, right?”

It’s almost habit by now. Sooyoung offers her arm without having to think about it and Jinsol loops her hand around Sooyoung’s.

As they climb back down, the sound of the waves settle between them, a comforting backdrop; and Sooyoung is thinking about how the silence would have felt uncomfortable with anyone else. But Jinsol isn’t like any other person Sooyoung knows — she is a fresh breath of air. There is no baggage that comes with her — and it’s both a relief, and utterly terrifying, because Sooyoung doesn’t know any version of Jinsol but what she can grasp in front of her.

The lights of the town bob closer. They’re easy to spot in the dark; and they’re close enough now. 

Sooyoung gives Jinsol an apologetic little smile. “Careful,” she says. “Don’t lose your way home.”

Jinsol doesn’t let go of her hand like she usually does though. 

“Why do you never go past the cliffs?” she asks. A stray breeze whips her dress around her, loose and graceful, and she shivers. Sooyoung reaches out to wrap the shawl tighter around her shoulders. It’s grey and thick and woollen, perfect for a seaside town; something that had belonged to Sooyoung’s mother a long time ago until Sooyoung had gifted it to Jinsol. 

“You want me to go with you. Back into town.”

“Because you’re lucky, and you don’t even see it,” Jinsol says suddenly, “you get to go back if you wanted t—”

She stops. Something in her face flickers, too fast for Sooyoung to catch. Sooyoung can feel the moment the aching comes back for Jinsol, because she closes her eyes and breathes in the salty sea air, and it’s lonely.

Sooyoung doesn’t know what Jinsol means by her cryptid words, but— 

Baby steps. Like Jiwoo said.

“Come on.”

Jinsol doesn’t say anything, but she tightens her grip on Sooyoung and lingers a half-step behind her, and it’s entirely trusting; and it gives Sooyoung the courage she needs to take the first step back to the place she once called home.

::

They almost make it.

It would’ve been completely fine — except the song starts, right as they pass through the middle of town. 

Jinsol startles. The only reason Sooyoung feels it is because Jinsol is still holding onto her hand; and she forces herself to block out the haunting melody to tug Jinsol closer to her. “You hear it too!” she hisses, unable to hide the strain in her voice. 

Jinsol shakes her head furiously. “I don’t know what you mean,” she says, trembling.

Sooyoung takes a step forward and jabs a finger into Jinsol’s face. Jinsol takes a step back, like they’re in an intricate dance that Sooyoung doesn’t know the steps to. “Last time, on the cliffs—” 

“—I don’t know what you mean!”

Neither of them realise how loud they’ve gotten until someone clears their throat behind them. Sooyoung spins around sheepishly — Hyejoo and Chaewon are right there, the people she used to be the closest to here, right after Haseul. But it’s been so long that it feels kind of weird for Sooyoung to see someone other than Jinsol and Jiwoo face-to-face. 

Hyejoo nods at her. “It’s good to have you back,” she says, none of the old bite in her voice. “Bad time?”

Sooyoung forces herself to smile back at her. On any other occasion, she would’ve been glad for the chance to see her old friends again, but— 

Jinsol takes the opportunity to wrench her hand away from Sooyoung and start running. 

“Hey— wait!” Sooyoung shouts after Jinsol, ignoring the strange looks they’re getting — at least Chaewon has the sensibility to pull Hyejoo away, shooting Sooyoung an apologetic glance — but by then, Jinsol has already gained a head start on her. 

Sooyoung just needs to get to the bottom of Jinsol’s mystery. If she leaves, Sooyoung doesn’t know if she’ll see her again.

She’s a little desperate. Sooyoung can’t be left alone with the song in her head again tormenting her — there is no Haseul here to help her tamp it down and keep it from driving her insane. And it’s also worse now, because the song reminds her of Haseul and water and all the things Sooyoung has grown to fear.

She barely remembers the fact that they’re in town anymore. “Jinsol! Please!” Sooyoung calls, and starts chasing after her, because there’s no other choice. 

Jinsol knows her way around town by now. She weaves among the alleys with ease, and Sooyoung is barely watching where she’s going, trying not to lose sight of Jinsol.

That’s when she bumps into someone, knocking both of them over. Sooyoung’s head crashes into the ground, hard; and that’s when her concentration breaks. 

She can’t block out the sound anymore. 

It’s loud.

Sooyoung winces at the throbbing in her head. She digs her palm against her temple — but it’s no use. Suddenly, there’s an offered hand in front of her face. Without thinking, Sooyoung takes it, and— 

“Sooyoung?”

At the familiar, raspy voice, Sooyoung feels the blood drain from her face. It’s something that haunts her; the fact that Sooyoung failed her. She failed both of them. She lied, she promised, she— 

Everything feels like it’s happening in slow motion.

Sooyoung meets Yeojin’s eyes. She lets go of her hand. She ends up falling back onto the ground with a thump — but she barely cares about it, not when Haseul’s sister is in front of her.

“I didn’t think you’d be back so soon,” Yeojin says, and there’s so much of Haseul in her face and in her words that Sooyoung can’t speak. She’s underwater again, gasping for air, and it’s dark and inky and there’s the song in her head. Faintly, she realises that Jinsol turns back once she realises that Sooyoung isn’t following her anymore; but that doesn’t matter when Yeojin had said the same thing to her, months ago, right before— 

_“You promised—” Punch. “that you—” Punch. “would bring—” Punch. “her back—”_

_Sooyoung has to hold Yeojin’s fists away from her. Yeojin twists around uselessly in her grasp for an escape. “I’m sorry.”_

_Around them, the wind howls, but it can’t cover the tear tracks on Yeojin’s cheeks, all the lost hope from her eyes. How were things still fine a few days ago? Haseul would have laughed at the two of them if she saw the state they were in._

_But right now, Haseul isn’t here. The guilt nips at Sooyoung, tugs on her heartstrings._

_“You lied to me,” Yeojin spits, each word punctuated with hate. Suddenly, she manages to tug herself free, and Sooyoung lets her go even though Yeojin was no match for her strength. It’s easier, she knows, when you have someone to blame._

_Yeojin barely gets out of sight before Sooyoung hears the broken, grief-stricken wail._

“I—” Sooyoung gasps, scrambling back, “Yeojin, I—”

Jinsol meets her eyes from behind Yeojin. Sooyoung heaves, but there’s nothing in her stomach to throw up; and she flees right as the song reaches its crescendo.

::

The song won’t stop. 

If this were months ago, Haseul would’ve let herself into Sooyoung’s room by now. She’d sit cross-legged on Sooyoung’s bed and reach across for her hand, and it’d be enough to tide both of them over until the song stopped haunting Sooyoung. 

But tonight, there is no Haseul. The melody just trickles off into the night, and Sooyoung’s heart echoes the lonely, desperate wail of the sound. 

She tries blocking out the music with her pillow over her ears, but the noise is too eerie to let go of her this easily. So Sooyoung kicks the covers off— too cold, but she needs to breathe. The air is chokingly hot, even though the wind howls outside, and she stumbles over to the window and throws it open.

She’s almost forgotten how it’s like to feel like this, with Haseul before— and now Jinsol being a distraction for her, albeit unknowingly. 

The rain starts pattering into the room. 

Sooyoung can’t bring herself to care — instead, she just sits there in the wooden chair, staring into the dark, familiar shapes of the cliff, head blank. At least it’s silent inside her mind — the song continues, and there it is, that familiar melody that keeps repeating itself but doesn’t have an end.

Haseul used to be scared of the thunder, Sooyoung remembers, and Sooyoung’s mother didn’t really care that much when she slept over. Sooyoung was more scared of the song to care about the thunderstorm. But they would stay up for each other, and for a moment, Sooyoung relishes in how it had felt when she traced Haseul’s jawline in the dark. 

_Please_ , she thinks, and she isn’t sure what she is begging for anymore. For relief? For forgiveness? For the song to never come back? 

But the memories won’t leave her alone.

Sooyoung clenches her eyes shut and buries her face in her arms. 

There are traces of Haseul everywhere, and it’s so taunting that Sooyoung is suddenly relieved that she moved here, far away from everyone else — because she doesn’t think she could’ve coped with being in her old room right now, with the ghost of Haseul’s fingerprints lingering on all surfaces. And even though the rain makes her shiver, Sooyoung welcomes it. 

(She can’t get into the bath nowadays — it makes her think about drowning. It makes her think about Haseul.)

She doesn’t know how long she sits there, with the wind howling at her and her heart howling right back; but when Jinsol finds her, Sooyoung’s nose is stuffed. She can’t tell if it’s the cold, the tears threatening to come out or the wind nipping at her cheeks; or if it’s a combination of all three.

“You left,” Jinsol says, almost accusingly; but once she sees Sooyoung curled up into herself trying to shield herself from the memories, she softens. Jinsol crosses the room and sits down next to her, laying her head in her lap, a comforting weight. 

“Haseul,” Sooyoung croaks. Her mouth feels dry. “That’s her name.”

Jinsol turns her head, and her chin digs into Sooyoung’s thigh, and waits.

“My best friend. She can hear the song too, and she disappeared a few months ago. And I was one of the people that went on the rescue mission, but no one else came back from that journey but me— the shipwreck. That’s why they think I’m cursed. That’s why I don’t go back to town, Jinsol, but I— I couldn’t save Haseul.” 

Sooyoung’s words don’t make sense even to her. And yet Jinsol listens to her, so earnestly that Sooyoung gets a little choked up. “God, this is so weird,” she sniffed, dabbing at the corner of her eyes with the side of her hand, “I’ve never told anyone before. They’ve always just known.”

Jinsol hugs Sooyoung’s leg to her chest, her presence warm and gentle. “Do you want me to help?”

“No, Jinsol, it’s all over. You can’t do anything now.”

“I came from the sea,” answers Jinsol, and Sooyoung shakes her head, frustrated.

“Yeah, Jiwoo told me you washed up on shore, right?”

Jinsol blinks at her. “Not like that,” she says, and takes in a deep breath. Sooyoung has never seen Jinsol with so much certainty in her before, and it feels like she’s in a weird, alternate version of their world where everything is flipped upside-down. “I am a selkie.”

It— it isn’t what Sooyoung thought she would say.

Sooyoung’s heard of selkies before, of course; the beings that can change from seal to human form by shedding their skin. She _does_ live in a seaside town. But unlike the people who’ve lived here all their lives, she’s always brushed things like selkies and mermaids and sirens off as mythological beings. 

“I woke up on shore without my pelt,” Jinsol murmurs, once she realises that Sooyoung isn’t interrupting. “I think someone stole it off me.”

Sooyoung thinks about the folk-tales she grew up with. A man finds a selkie, hides her skin, makes her his wife. And she spends her time in captivity longing for the sea, and once she finds it, she abandons everything on land to go home, even if she had given birth to children. 

“Like in the myths,” she says, but it feels like she’s thinking out loud instead, “when the humans force people into relationships by hiding their sealskin.”

It _does_ make sense though. Sooyoung thinks back to when they were on the cliff, the emotion with which Jinsol had stared at the sea when she thought that Sooyoung didn’t notice. The longing in her eyes, the ache in her words; the wildness she carries with her.

The realisation dawns on Sooyoung.

“That’s how you can hear the song,” she says slowly, “because you… you belong to the sea.”

“I can try and help you find Haseul, you know,” Jinsol says, nodding. “She might not be de— she might not be gone for good. There are more of us than you realise. Some of us save humans when there are shipwrecks— or predators, I suppose. Some sirens kill people.”

Sooyoung shudders unconsciously at the thought. “What about you? Did you ever save someone?”

“Only the women,” Jinsol says. “The men usually— the sirens take them. Sometimes they scream. Not the women. I can save them.”

(There was thunder, when the shipwreck happened. There was the rock. They had crashed into it, the boat splintered— and then the waves had started crashing down. Sooyoung doesn’t remember anything but water, and wanting to breathe in, and the music trying to drown her. She should’ve died like the rest of them— why hadn’t she? 

There was a seal. She remembers the eyes, round and dark and curious. Sooyoung swallows, and she realises Jinsol is staring at her, and—)

_Oh._

The exact same eyes are in front of her. They're sadder, they’re more human — but Jinsol has the exact same eyes. There’s no denying it. 

“Jinsol?” Sooyoung whispers in disbelief. 

“I can help,” Jinsol says, completely determined and unaware. “I just need something from you.”

Sooyoung shakes her head. Haseul is more important than— than whatever happened at sea. “So Haseul might not be—” 

“No,” Jinsol says. “But I need you to help me find my pelt. I’m not trying to hold it over your head, I just— there’s literally no way I can do it if I don’t have my sealskin. I can’t go back into the ocean— and I don’t— exactly trust anyone here. That’s why I didn’t tell you earlier.”

Sooyoung is still reeling from the revelation. It feels like bomb after bomb is being dropped onto her. “Then why now?”

“We both have nothing left to lose.” 

The selkies in the folk-tales never come back, once they go. They find their sealskin locked up in a chest, steal the key, and abandon everyone on land who loves them.

“You help me find my pelt and set me free,” Jinsol says, “I help you find Haseul.”

“Can you?”

“Do you trust me?” Jinsol tilts her head up. “Because I don’t think you have much of a choice.”

Sooyoung holds her gaze steady, challenging. “You don’t either.”

Jinsol shrugs, surprisingly nonchalant. “You’re right.”

She doesn’t feel as fragile anymore. Sooyoung can’t decide if it’s because she has an explanation for the wistfulness Jinsol carries with her, or if it’s Jinsol’s sudden shift to focus, but it feels like a whole new person is standing in front of Sooyoung. 

But Sooyoung is friends with a selkie.

Haseul might be alive.

She doesn’t know where to begin, but something in Sooyoung tells her to reach for Jinsol’s hand and link their fingers together. “Alright,” she mumbles, “I’ll do it.” 

“A secret for a secret,” Jinsol replies, a faint echo of a memory that tugs at Sooyoung’s heart. She squeezes Sooyoung’s hand; and that’s how Sooyoung knows for certain that she made the right decision.

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is unbetaed (so far)! apologies for any mistakes and i hope u like angst and also hurt/comfort/healing because. uh. part 2?? vibes for this fic: https://open.spotify.com/album/4m8XN9CKqve1ExYBnNu5kt?si=YWFN3ahASA2a646jIentgg
> 
> (also @roguefembot... pspsppsp.... this fic is unofficially dedicated to u but also pspsps...)  
> 
> 
> twitter: [yvezoul](https://twitter.com/yvezoul)  
> curiouscat: [yvezoul](https://curiouscat.me/yvezoul)  
> 


End file.
